Green Recycle Processing of Cathode Active Material from LiNi1/3Co1/3Mn1/3O2 (NCM 111) Battery Waste through Citric Acid Leaching and Oxalate Co-precipitation Process
Septia Refly (a), Octia Floweri (d), Tirta R. Mayangsari (b), Akfiny H. Aimon (a,c), Ferry Iskandar (a,c,d*)
(a) Department of Physics, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Jl. Ganesha 10 Bandung 40132, Indonesia
(b) Department of Chemistry, Universitas Pertamina, Jl. Teuku Nyak Arief, Simprug, Jakarta 12220, Indonesia
(c) National Center for Sustainable Transportation Technology, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Jl. Ganesha 10 Bandung 40132, Indonesia
(d) Research Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Jl. Ganesha 10 Bandung 40132, Indonesia
*ferry[at]fi.itb.ac.id
Abstract
Dealing with the high price of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) constituent materials, researchers around the world are seeking for the new source to assure sustainability of battery production. Valuable metals from spent LIBs can be used as a secondary source for LIB cathode production, which can be recovered through metal extraction in the form of acid leaching process of the cathode material. This action is not only economically beneficial but also able to reduce environmental and health hazards due to heavy metals contained in LIBs waste. In this study, citric acid was used as a leaching agent to extract Li, Co, Ni, and Mn metals from the active material cathode LiNi1/3Co1/3Mn1/3O2 (NCM 111). The addition of sucrose as a reducing agent was able to increase leaching efficiency, indicated by the increase of metal ion concentration in the filtrate. Based on this study, optimal conditions of the leaching process are the citric acid concentration of 1.2 M, reaction temperature of 80 ⁰C, reductant dosage of 0.5 g/g, the reaction time of 90 minutes, stirring speed of 400 rpm and solid to liquid ratio of 20 g/L. Transition metal ions in the filtrate are then co-precipitated to obtain salt precipitate through oxalate co-precipitation process. The dried precipitate had a crystalline structure of MC2O4⋅2H2O (M = Co, Mn, Ni), as was confirmed by XRD analysis. Organic acids leaching and oxalate co-precipitation process were able to recover valuable metals from spent LIBs through an environmentally friendly procedure.
Keywords: Lithium ion batteries (LIBs), NCM 111, Recycle, Citric acids, Oxalate co-precipitation
Topic: Functional Materials